SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Mariam Mansuryan The music... same as in the other two titles of Pasolini that I have seen. There was a boy playing an instrument all through the film. And this music ended the movie, with Medea going crazy.Something of the camerawork I remember is faces that were out of focus, sometimes men's faces would be blurred in the eyes of Medea. This can show a perspective, how she didn't see Jason clearly for who he was.The killing of children, although implied, wasn't shown. I think that makes it even more powerful, because in the last scene Medea, reversely, caresses her children, lovingly.We see a sense of loss of her identity, first of all, because Medea doesn't even seem to realize how she kills her children. If we truly are put in her head, than everything is very chaotic, all over the place, all over the time. Guided by the strange music that a boy with her sons plays. Sometimes Medea will drift off, and then as she wakes up, we find out she has done something horrible, but not us, nor Medea, had any idea.When the maids undress her from the black clothes and put white gown on her instead, making Medea look like them, there is a sense of repression. Now that I think about it, this sense of repression is present in other Pasolini films too.It is also about how the repression breaks into a revolt. In Porcile, the boy is eaten by pigs, a repression replaced with extreme violence. Something similar in Oedipus Rex, where Oedipus destroys his eyes with metal sticks. As if throwing all anger and fear into one final move of hands. And the same happens here. The entire town is burning, the children are dead, and Medea is in the middle of all this with a black dress. Her repressed self has come through.

Tyson Hunsaker Medea feels like one of Pier Pasolini's more obscure and lesser known works. Being overshadowed by some of his heavyweights and more controversial films, Medea can be easily forgotten and tossed aside. This is unfortunate seeing how unique this film feels. What feels riveting about Medea is one: our lead's performance is outstanding. She plays Medea with utmost confidence and terror that paints a memorable portrait of a character that's unforgettable. Two: while camera work seems to break necessary rules, the audience feels unusually drawn to what's inflame due to great locations, excellent production design for its time, and it's dramatic dialogue. Unfortunately the dialogue does feel too good on paper and nowhere else which can take the viewer out of the experience. Like something written as a novel first which wasn't meant to be adapted in the first place. The film explores fascinating themes like jealousy, betrayal, relationships, etc. The story explores feminism in a way that could be beneficial to see. The viewer sees this in a strong and empowering way and also in extreme and harmful ways. Medea has both good and not so good examples of women's liberation. While Medea represents a strong genuinely fierce woman who is a force to be reckoned with. She comes across distant from other characters who she should be closer with; like other members of her family. Medea's passion and determination to achieve her goal I can imagine is refreshing to see when many female characters are portrayed as supporting and passive ones. Especially for a 1969 audience (which is the film I saw of the story), seeing a woman with that much drive and ability to excel probably felt invigorating. In fact, much of her character feels threatening almost to her counter male characters who don't see her for what she would like to be seen as. Unfortunately since most of the characters don't provide the "respect" she feels and frankly, we feel she might deserve, she's given less. Much less. I think this is where the story flips when this unfair misunderstanding makes things too unbearable for Medea. As she is tossed aside for another wife for Jason, she's seen as a tool or a means to an end and this is where I think, she takes it too far and removes herself from the title of "heroin."Her almost ruthless nature unravels when she kills her own children which is not only extreme but there is fundamentally something psychopathic when we imagine a mother killing her own child for selfish reasons. Arguably the most genuine and strongest bond we can imagine in human relationships is between a mother and her child. I think this is when her character changes in the viewer's eyes. We don't sympathize with her anymore and really question her sanity. She murdered her own children out of spite for her husband!I've wondered why Pasolini chose to write such a story and I think I have two theories: One, I think he might've been thinking about the innate power and determination women actually have. Perhaps it was a cautionary tale essentially saying "Don't mess with the women, they can actual tear you apart." Maybe he foresaw a time where women would strike back due to oppression and unequal treatment. My second theory is that maybe he's not very sympathetic to the female sex at all. Maybe he was attempting to suggest women will be the death of us if they are not "kept in check." Honestly I would like to think the first option but knowing Pasolini's other works and his seeming disregard for many good qualities of humanity in his films, I don't know how much I'd bet on it. Ultimately I wouldn't recommend it to examine female liberation but it is worth checking into for a discussion anyway.For film buffs, this one is checking out but maybe won't be the best example to examine closely. Technically and structurally there are moment-ruining flaws that are difficult to get over and with he exception of our lead, performances aren't extremely impressive. Definitely not for everyone.

Frederick Malouf Wow. Pretty amazing. Pier must have been a bit tame with this considering his later work.Anyway, I just had to say that Maria Callas is gorgeous in this film.If you needed proof that intense, emotional women are intoxicating, then this shows it. Really strong performance. Very instinctive. It's worth watching the film just to see her, and the photography that makes that so captivating.Pier is a new discovery for me. An intense man.Well worth the watch.

zolaaar "That which man, discovering agriculture, saw in grain that which he understood from seeds that loose their form in the earth to be born again, all that has become the ultimate truth: resurrection. But the ultimate truth is no longer valid. What you see in the grain, in the growth of the seed has lost all meaning for you. Like a discarded memory. In fact, there is no god." This statement by the Centaur in the beginning already covers the entire story. The consequence, the conflict between the archaic and the rationalized, modern world view becomes concrete from this point on, held only by the action of physical powers. Medea's revenge remains completely uncommented and unweighted. What's left is the act alone which Pasolini lifts out of the row of reason and effect. Medea, accused of its formalistic aestheticism and set in ancient Greece, is actually a pretty modern film, an experiment in ethnologic cinema. It's a colourful, 'sulfurous' work, devout in the immovable silence of a new invented Colchis in the Middle East, heart-breakingly bewitched and shot with the enthusiasm of a hand-camera; with images of purely emotional tension where words are replaced by gestures, communication replaced by the ritual. The pain and the fear for their existence of the characters have priority and that's why this film finds another level of understanding in the viewer, on a merely emotional base - in a swell of emotions which is experienced through Medea's visionary look, where love and death, regret and revenge follow each other without respite. It is also an opportunity to meet grand Maria Callas on screen. With her natural dignity and those striking features, her penetrative eyes, her harshness, with the real human psychic trauma and angst inside of her she is the authentic, inspiring muse of the film and impersonates perfectly the complexity of Medea: The archaic world of the Greek peasants where indications of a progressing cultural and social stratification is already perceivable.